It’s a mystery what happened to Korean War veteran Paul Kowallek after he died.

According to the Kowallek family, he was cremated at Walton’s Funeral Home in Reno after his death in 1975, and his ashes were spread on Wagon Tire Mountain north of Gerlach.

But according to the Nevada Veterans Coalition Kowallek’s ashes sat with dozens of other unclaimed veterans in a storage facility at Walton’s for decades. The coalition aims to provide military services for the remains of all unclaimed Nevada veterans, and retired what it believes to be Kowallek's remains during a March ceremony at the Northern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Fernley.

So, what really happened to Kowallek? Nobody is sure.

Who was Paul Kowallek?

Born in 1917, Paul Kowallek II “was a child of the Depresssion,” said his son, Paul Kowallek III, 71, who lives in Virginia City Highlands.

A young Paul Kowallek.(Photo11: Courtesy Kowallek family)

The senior Kowallek grew up in Ohio, working various jobs including pulling a rickshaw, shoveling ore and as a waiter at a speakeasy.

“He was scared to death when it came time to join the Army, they might not take him because of that (his job at the speakeasy),” the younger Kowallek said.

The senior Kowallek had a draft deferment contingent on finishing medical school, and didn’t enter the Army until he was 28.

“He always said he felt guilty walking around in civilian clothes when everyone else was in uniform in the Second World War,” his son recalled.

Kowallek served in the U.S. Army from 1945 to 1953, earning a bronze star during his time in Okinawa and Korea. One story his son recalls is about his dad’s dislike for corned beef hash, something that was fed to the troops regularly as rations ran low.

“Dad wouldn’t eat corn beef hash,” he said. “He would have killed for wieners and beans in a can.”

Around 1953, Kowallek was offered a job as a staff surgeon at the VA Medical Center in Reno, and he and his high school sweetheart, Leona Mackay, packed up and moved across the country. He and another surgeon performed the first aortic aneurysm repair in Reno, and installed the first pacemaker, his son said, and Kowallek senior quickly rose to the rank of chief surgeon. He served as chief surgeon until 1970, when he retired due to severe rheumatoid arthritis.

He died in 1975 at age 57.

Nevada Veterans Coalition's Missing in Nevada project

The Nevada Veterans Coalition originally worked with the Missing in America Project to locate, identify and inter unclaimed remains of veterans. Missing in America has found more than 15,000 unclaimed remains and has identified and interred about 3,500.

Members of the Nevada Veterans Coalition realized they could work faster on their own rather than through the national organization, and “we decided we were going to break off and just do missing in Nevada,” said Tom Draughon, public information officer for the coalition. “As of May 11, we have done 130 (unclaimed veterans) in no time at all.”

About 50 members strong, the coalition is dedicated to recovering the remains of all unclaimed Nevada veterans. Monthly services are held for those recovered at the Northern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Fernley.

““We’re not gonna rest until we can say every forgotten Nevadan has been found and given the honors they deserve.””

Tom Draughon, Nevada Veteran Coalition public information officer

“We’re not gonna rest until we can say every forgotten Nevadan has been found and given the honors they deserve,” he said. “We want to be able to say, ‘the state of Nevada has taken care of this.’”

Unclaimed remains

Sitting in a conference room at Walton’s flagship location on West Second Street, General Manager Rick Noel speaks frankly about unclaimed remains.

“Every funeral home in the country has the same problem we have -- having unclaimed, cremated remains,” he said. “For whatever reason, people have abandoned their loved ones.”

In Reno, the Washoe County Medical Examiner’s Office researches next of kin for those who die. If no family is identified, the county pays for cremation and the funeral home must wait at least two years before it can remove remains from its property, Noel said. If the remains belong to a veteran, it must be reported to the Nevada State Board of Funeral and Cemetery Services. He said Walton’s averages eight to 10 unclaimed remains per month.

“Some of these folks have been in our care, stored in our facility, for years,” he said. “Some of them go back to the '60s. At that point, we have very little information on them."

He said the backlog of remains builds up because funeral homes are reluctant to dispose of remains too early.

The Nevada Veterans Coalition identified 88 veterans at Walton’s, some dating back to the mid-1960s. All 88 of the veterans have now received services. Among the remains identified were Kowallek’s.

Noel is flummoxed at what could have happened to Kowallek’s ashes more than 40 years ago.

“That’s unbelievable. That’s gotta be the same person,” he said. “I don’t know how that could possibly be. Unless there was another one (Paul Kowallek), I don’t know how to answer that…”

Remains are “just kind of lined up, if you will,” Noel said, describing the unclaimed ashes. For the oldest that are unclaimed, sometimes there’s nothing more than a box with a name written on it.

“The people (contacts of the deceased) we have on file from the 1970s, some of them have moved, some of them are dead. We just can’t find them,” he said.

Identifying unclaimed veterans

That’s where veteran’s coalition secretary Lynda Freeman comes in.

Freeman is tasked with sorting through thousands of names, looking for clues as to who might be a veteran.

She received 1,341 names from Walton’s Funeral Homes, which took her about a year to sort through. She has 66 more mortuaries to work with, she said.

“We just go through the list on the websites we have available to us, then get information confirmed by the V.A.,” she said.

“I can attest how hard that is,” Noel said. “If it wasn’t for the coalition, with their ins with the VA system, we wouldn’t have known if they were veterans or not.”

Veterans who were honorably discharged and served for at least three months are eligible for burial through the initiative.

Of the 130 veterans who have received services from the coalition since its initiative started, just one family member has contacted Freeman. That person decided he didn’t want to claim the remains of his sister’s ex-husband.

While the number of names to sort through is mind-boggling, Freeman doesn’t mind. She is retired from an information technology career, where she wrote technical manuals for the military, and she enjoys spending the time doing research. Freeman said she keeps her research analytical, focusing simply on name, dates of birth, death and service, and if the person was a veteran.

Saying goodbye to Paul Kowallek

So, what happened to Paul Kowallek after he died? It seems nobody will ever know for sure.

“I had no idea that the remains were unaccounted for,” the younger Kowallek said. “Walton’s cremated him. I know my mom picked up the ashes from the funeral home. He didn’t want any services at all. He wanted to be cremated. My mom had a small remembrance thing. I have no idea how he got on that list.”

To the best of his knowledge, his family had picked up the ashes and spread them on Wagon Tire Mountain, where the senior Kowallek enjoyed chukar hunting.